A blog about homebrewing and craft beer in South Africa

Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival 2012

Yesterday we visited the first day of the Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival. It is a six-day festival (27th-29th September & 4th-6th October 2012). For the first time beer bloggers/writers could get press accreditation. Gladly enough many of the members of the Scandinavian Beer Writers Association was there. It is good to know the other bloggers and also to get inspiration and new ideas.

The Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival is the third largest beer festival and the largest whisky festival in the world. This year you can choose between 2 100 different beers and 1 500 different whisky. It is impossible to taste them all even if you attend all days so you need a plan. The plan this year was to have no plan but it became a plan later on to visit the new and small breweries. Like in South Africa the Scandinavian beer scene is growing day by day and new breweries start all the time. Unlike South Africa this is the third or fourth “wave” since early 1990s.

There were no South African beers represented but a few SA wines did show up at the whisky part of the festival. It would be fantastic to have a South African beer exhibition next year. We did talk to one, soon to be, South African brewery though. That is Åbro Bryggeri who is one of the partners in Cape Brewing Company in Fairview. The brewery is going to be ready later this year or early next year. They have a great confidence in Wolfgang Ködel as brewmaster and at the moment he is working to adapt/improve some of the Åbro beers.

We hope to be able to write more about the festival within the following days.